Creatures of the Night
by The Official Girl Wonder
Summary: Belief. Reality. The concept of "what if" pervades. So, what if Gotham's dark defenders were not the human vigilantes we "know" them to be? What if the night's illusions held true? What if Batman and his allies actually were creatures of the night? Are you ready to see? Take off the blinders.
1. Chapter 1

Every pad of her feet on the concrete and every gust of cold air in her face was a taunting reminder. She needed to get home _now_. Of course, that's easier said than done in Gotham City, as she was so kindly reminded when three burly men smelling of alcohol stepped out of an alleyway to block her path.

_I do not have time for this._

"Hey, little girl, you look lost," drawled one thug with a missing tooth, "How 'bout you just spend the night with us?"

She, not a being of many words, just gave him a disgusted look and said, "No. Sorry."

His friend, noticeably more drunk than the other two, swayed on his feet as he took a jagged knife out of his bulky jacket. "Ya see," he said, "That wasn't no question, Missy. Let's go."

The girl sighed in frustration and quickly looked up at the sky. It was still evening, but getting dark fast. She needed to get home. Her family would kill her…Okay, no they wouldn't. But they would be worried sick, and _her_ family was dangerous when its members were worried.

She glared back at the thugs and said, "Out of my way."

The third man, who hadn't spoken yet and possessed a little more common sense than his companions, felt something foreboding about this girl. She looked like just another teenager, but…The way she glared made him want to get as far away from her as possible. And she was so calm. Definitely not like the other women he and his friends picked up on the streets. One of those girls would have been crying hysterically and going along with them from the moment she spotted them. This girl was just…different. He didn't like that.

"Guys," he said, trying to get his friends' attention, "Maybe- Maybe we shouldn't bother with this one. She ain't coming easy. Just let her go home."

"Nah, man," said Mr. Obviously Inebriated in a predatory voice, "You kidding? I want this one."

The girl scowled. She really didn't have time, but she supposed these losers would only persist, and that would waste even more time. Without using another breath on words, she jumped into the evening air and planted a strong kick on the offender's chest. He choked on his own breath and flew backwards into a trash can. Shocked and angry, one of his friends charged the young woman, only to be punched once in the guts and elbowed once in the neck, which rendered him unconscious. She turned to the last man, the one who'd tried to reason with his companions, and said, "Still letting me go?"

He numbly nodded his head and stepped aside for her. She gave him a grateful, but intimidating smile as she passed.

The smile quickly faded though, when she looked back up at the sky to find it darker than when she last checked. _I really need to get home._

She took off running down the street.

The man she left standing shook his head, not believing what he just saw, both when that girl took down his buddies and when she smiled. _Is it just me, or…Did she have fangs?_


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: The lack of reviews for the first chapter was totally underwhelming, but I'm actually proud of this story. I'm working on my descriptions through it and having a lot of fun with the plot idea too. If for nothing else, I'll keep with it because I like it and because two people actually favorited/followed it. Thanks!**

The girl, Cassandra Cain, quickened her pace as she made her way through some woods. It was late, dangerously late, for her to just be coming home. She could feel it. Already, her body was changing, and nothing she could do would stop it. She tried to keep running. She had wanted to at least get into the cave before it happened, but it now looked like she would have to settle for just being out of the public eye. That was what really mattered.

Her legs gave out and she dropped to the dirt floor, her hands clawing at tree bark in an attempt to alleviate the pain. It didn't work. She bit her bottom lip and tried to suppress the grunts of discomfort that escaped her. That actually wasn't such a good idea, she realized as her fangs began to cut the skin under her mouth. Wait, her fangs were already in? Those always grew first, so she hoped that they hadn't been there when she'd encountered those men. Then, her family would kill her.

A louder sound of anguish came from her as her back arched and sleek, black, leathery wings grew from it. The area around her eyes became black and her pupils disappeared, giving her face an eerie domino look. Her now completely white eyes stared down at hands that turned jet black and grew long claws. At the same time, the skin on her forearms was lost beneath soft black feathers.

After a few more moments, filled with trembling and clawing in pain, she grew still and stood up straight. Immediately, she felt the need to stretch her wings and did so, spreading the large, disconcertingly beautiful structures in different directions and hearing satisfying cracks as she did. Once she felt comfortable again, she continued to walk until coming to an inconspicuous stone wall amongst the trees. She placed a clawed hand on the cool rock and watched part of it glow in recognition. She then stepped back as the stones parted to allow her access to their secret.

She looked behind her once out of habit before entering the newly revealed space and hearing the stones close behind her.

She walked down a pitch black hallway for a while, her nocturnal white eyes easily seeing a paved ground with numerous tire tracks on it. As she traveled in silence, she wondered at how she ended up here and how she ended up this way.

Her father, David Cain, had raised her to become the world's greatest assassin. Her earliest memories were of pain and violence. While other children learned to read and play, she learned to kill. When she was eight years old, she committed her first (and she hoped, her last) murder. However, the anguish in her dying victim's eyes had made her feel the gravity of what she'd done, and she ran away from her father.

That very night, the small girl had collapsed onto the ground, unable to get back up for some reason. Fearing that her father had followed her, Cassandra tried to force herself back to her feet, but she couldn't move. Thanks to her upbringing, she was used to pain. She was used to enduring a kind of physical pain that most children couldn't imagine and not making a sound. But this sensation she felt now made her scream. She had forgotten that she could scream.

After a few minutes, pain and shrieking subsided and her trembling diminished slightly. She forced herself back up and continued to walk. She didn't know how loud she had screamed, if her father had heard her, or even if she'd gotten far enough away from him before collapsing, but she really didn't want to find out the hard way. She would not kill again.

Cassandra walked for hours until she came to a small river. What she saw in her reflection made her scream again.

"You're late,"

She came out of her thoughts to see her brother leaning against a doorway. Only one word could be used by the average person to describe this teenage boy: a vampire.


	3. Chapter 3

_She came out of her thoughts to see her brother leaning against a doorway. Only one word could be used by the average person to describe this teenage boy: a vampire._

This description would come from his abnormally pale skin and a pair of fangs that matched his sister's. Once people saw those, they automatically thought of the mythical creatures from various folklore (and teen romance novels). When one looked past those features, he or she would notice how different the two teenagers' appearances actually were. While Cassandra's black feathers only covered her forearms, Tim had black, red, and yellow ones all over his wings, which were noticeably larger than hers. Tim didn't have any claws, but he did have an extra layer of thick black skin covering the area that ran from his nose to the back of his neck. This skin layer also obscured the area around his eyes, which, like Cassandra's, were pure white, making him look like he had a black cowl on.

"Bruce'll clip your wings for making us worry," Tim said with a smirk, "You know that, right?"

"Clip your wings" was a phrase that Tim, Cass, Steph, and Damian used quite often to tease each other. They knew better than to let the elder members of the clan hear them say it, though. The adults wouldn't tolerate it after what happened to Jason.

Cass smirked back. "Let him try."

"Hey, Timmy," called a slightly older voice, "Did you find Cass?"

Tim sighed. He really wished Dick would stop calling him 'Timmy'. What sort of nickname was that for a seventeen-year old?

"Yeah, she's fine," Tim called back to their eldest brother as he and Cass entered an enormous cavern, decked out with unbelievably advanced technology, impressively crafted weapons, and more chattering bats than they could count. The Batcave.

Dick ran up to them, looking relieved. The young man had a lithe body covered in smooth black and red feathers. And unlike Cass, who still had hair on her head, or Tim, whose hair was trapped under his extra skin layer, Dick's head had shiny black feathers where his hair used to be, almost reaching his shoulders. His claws were shorter than Cassandra's, but just as his two younger siblings, he didn't possess fangs per se, but his teeth were noticeably sharper than a human's, each one a triangle that easily fit between the others. On his back were two very conspicuous rectangular bone structures, right where Cass and Tim's wings would be. Dick had wings too, but didn't bring them out often because of the excrutiating pain he always experienced when releasing them.

"We were all worried sick, Cass."

Cass just nodded, already feeling guilty. If her transformation were seen by a stranger, she would have jeopardized her whole adoptive family.

"Yes, Cain, next time you wish to expose us, provide a quick warning and then leave."

She simply frowned at the newcomer, Damian. She knew that the boy really just said such things to rile the people around him, so she ignored him most of the time. After all, why should she get into an argument with the ten-year old tonight?

Unfortunately, Tim was easily infuriated by their youngest brother.

"Back off, Demon. You made the same mistake barely two weeks ago."

Damian growled at the older boy, undoubtedly angered by the name 'Demon'. Unfortunately, his physiology only encouraged Tim to call him such.

Damian was a small boy with black, scaly skin on his arms and legs, red feathers covering his torso, and two pairs of ears. One pair was two completely ordinary human ears. The other wastwo short, black, pointed ears that stood atop his head, sticking out of his hair. Tim never hesitated to call them his 'devil horns'. Like the others, Damian's eyes were pupil-less, but the skin around them was dark green, not black. To finish it all off, the boy's back was adorned with two small wings covered in yellow and black feathers.

"At least I don't screw up nearly as much as you do, Drake!" the ten-year old responded venomously.

"Alright, that's enough, you two," Dick interrupted. Tim and Damian tended to debate for hours.

"Yes, please stop. I still have a headache from last time," said a female voice.

They turned to see Stephanie Brown coming down a flight of stairs. At the top of those stairs was Wayne Manor, where Cass supposed the rest of their family was at the moment.

Steph's blond hair flowed out from a cowl-like layer of skin, much like Tim's except that hers had pointed ears, slightly larger than Damian's. Another, tough, gray layer coated the front and back of her body, from her neck to her ankles, while a purple, striated layer ran down her sides. Her smooth wings were a dark purple color and about the same size as Cass's.

Cass smiled and walked over to her best friend while Tim turned away and tried to look busy. The boy hid it well, but he still felt a bit awkward around his returned-from-the-dead ex-girlfriend.

"So, Cass, what took you?" Steph asked, sounding carefree as ever.

"Little trouble. Street thugs," was the nonchalant response.

At this, the boys looked up with interest.

"Did you kill them?" Damian asked.

Everyone glared darkly in response.

"What?" the boy, asked, "I only wanted to know if she killed them. Surely, Gotham could use a decrease in its population of idiots."

"No," Cass growled.

"Did they see you?" Dick asked, voicing what was really on everyone's minds.

Cass didn't answer right away, and they all feared the worst.

Finally, she looked back up and said, "Don't know if…I don't know if they saw the start, but no one saw the full thing."

Steph sighed in relief. Tim started thinking. Dick gave Cass a sympathetic look. Damian was…Damian.

"Cain, you ignoramus! Were you born brain dead, or is it a result of-?"

"What's going on?"

Damian fell silent (to his siblings' relief) at the sound of his father's voice.

There was a reason why they all feared the general public would see their transformations. They weren't completely human. Not anymore anyway. Each member of their "family" had been human at some point, with the exception of Damian, who'd inherited his abnormality from Bruce. Like Cass, each of them experienced something in his or her life that triggered the change. They hadn't even figured out why yet. Bruce had been studying their condition for years, and Tim was helping, but they had very few answers.

The problem was that they weren't the only ones who wanted to know. Everyone had heard ofGotham's "dark guardians," the birds and bats, the winged crusaders. If someone realized that these "creatures" were normal humans by day…If anyone found out what their names were, who they were related to, where they went to work and school…Certain authorities would have much more aggressive ways of "studying" them.

And it was understandable. They all inspired fear just by their appearance.

But if his children inspired fear, Bruce inspired pure terror.

Standing tall with huge black wings, a cowl-like skin structure, pupil-less eyes, pointed ears, tough gray skin, black claws, and sharp teeth, Bruce made hardened criminals and civilians alike cower in trepidation. Wherever he walked or flew, he seemed to carry a dark, vengeful aura with him. He was known as the Batman.

When no one answered, he repeated his question.

"What's going on?"

Tim scoffed and glared at his little brother. "Damian was yelling at Cass for no good reason."

Damian scoffed similarly, and said with the proud air of an over-privileged child, "I had reason, Father. She was seen undergoing her transformation! And by feckless street trash!"

Bruce turned his gaze to his daughter. "Is that true?"

Without hesitating, Cass responded, "They didn't see the transformation. I was in an isolated area by then. I'm just not sure if my fangs were already in or not before I got out of sight."

Bruce nodded. "I'll look into it."

They all nodded back. It didn't matter that Cass didn't even know who those guys were. Bruce would find out.

"When does patrol start?" Dick asked, itching to take to the rooftops.

"Now," Bruce answered, walking towards the Batmobile.

They all followed suit.

**I'm rather proud of this chapter. I'm typically not great with descriptions, but I think this was pretty good. Let me know your thoughts in a review! Thanks for reading!**


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